


Together, We'll Ring in the New Year

by Never_Out_Of_Style



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Drunk Nicole Haught, F/F, Mutual Pining, New Year's Eve, New Year's Kiss, WynHaught Childhood Friends, WynHaught brotp, alcohol overconsumption, but is it mutual?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 06:23:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17482823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Never_Out_Of_Style/pseuds/Never_Out_Of_Style
Summary: She wanted to be brave tonight.But brave was something reserved for Wynonna. She knew brave wasn’t necessarily good, that it came with consequences, as Gus would say. Brave was reckless, and stupid, and dangerous, all the things that made Waverly’s insides ignite with doubt (and maybe the tiniest bit of hope).Brave was something that Waverly never could be; she couldn’t afford it.That is, until tonight.OR Waverly throws a huge New Year's Eve party with the express purpose of confessing her feelings to Nicole.





	Together, We'll Ring in the New Year

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Poetoaster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poetoaster/gifts).



> A New Year's Eve fic on January 20th?  
> I won't tell if you won't. 
> 
> Inspired by Together We'll Ring in the New Year, a la Motion City Soundtrack.   
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcrD0xio4hE
> 
> A brief reminder that this is chapter one in a three-part story.  
> Cheers!

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

_**December 31st. The Earp Homestead.** _

 

 

_This must be it_

_Welcome to the New Year_  

 

 

 

 

Waverly ran her finger along the table cloth, grounding herself in the feeling of the cloth against the pads of her fingertips. The room was decorated to perfection, and why wouldn’t it be? It had taken her hours and maybe more than a couple re-dos to get it right. She leaned back and admired her work, sated with the content that only comes when one admires that which she alone has created.

The other voice in her head admonished her, pointing out that that this whole exercise was _pointless_. She knew she’d be lucky if only half of those invited showed. Besides that, New Year’s Day was an excuse of a holiday if there ever was one.

All tinsel and food and drinks and an all-consuming need for numbness. Numb Christmas regrets and numb Christmas disappointments. Numb the upcoming deadlines of work and school. Numb the lackluster year from before, living out a shell of a life and only a fraction of one’s potential. Numb the idle and unfounded hope that maybe things will change for the better in the new year, while knowing full well that the difference between one year and the next is merely a moment on a clock.

 

Well now.

She sighed.

_That’s a little existential, don’t you think? Even coming from you._

 

She straightened out her golden-colored dress, picking at the hem and smoothing down the sides. She eyed her fingernails with contempt, noting that the new coat of the most carefully applied polish was insufficient to cover up the cuticles that were so obviously battered and torn. Small casualties in the war with anxiety.

And still, against her better judgement, she held up the side of her finger to her mouth like clockwork, biting down until she could feel that telltale pinch of the skin submitting to the will of her teeth, the pain bringing with it a temporary respite from the throbbing energy inside.

She moved away from the front room into the kitchen, where the harsh, yellow light illuminated the spread of assorted food and drink she’d prepared for her (lack of) guests. Everything was vegan, and she caught herself smiling as she imagined her guests’ expressions of surprise and delight.

_I would never know these are vegan_ , they would say. _It tastes just like the real thing!_

She’d blush and indulge them, modestly answering questions and promising to send out recipes en masse.

And then there would be her sister in the corner, making a show of rolling her eyes in plain view of the guests while sending looks of affection her way, poorly concealed as otherwise.

_This is enough to feed a small army!_ Wynonna would say around a mouthful of three veggie rolls.

Waverly would laugh, shake her head, maybe cup one of her sister’s very full cheeks.

_Wynonna, you are a small army._

Waverly yanked herself out of her dreams, her breath catching as glanced at the fridge. Her eyes were immediately drawn to the postcard that was still taped to the fridge, its edges curling in response to the abuse of the countless times she’d reread the untidy scrawl across its front.

 

_Wish you were here_ , it says, in big cartoon letters across a picture of Athens.

_Miss you, baby girl_ , it adds in Wynonna’s handwriting.

Not _quite_ enough miss to not leave in the first place, but miss all the same.

 

She jumped when she heard the front door slam open, the telltale sound of her sister’s voice reverberating off the walls.

“Holy shit, Waves! This place looks awesome!”

She could hear Wynonna set down what she (correctly) assumed was a 6-pack of beer on the dining room table, trying hard not flinch at the thought of her tablecloth bunching up on account of her sister’s negligence.

“Yeah, Waverly,” remarked another voice, almost as familiar. “You have a gift.”

She knew it was stupid. _She knew it._ But knowing it was stupid didn’t make her heart beat any slower.

_“Nicole,”_ she breathed out, audible only to herself.

 

Nicole and Wynonna had been best friends since before Waverly could properly remember. Where there was Wynonna, there was Nicole. And in all of those years that Nicole was a near constant presence in their lives, Waverly had felt the whole spectrum of emotions towards Wynonna’s best friend.

Jealousy, when the two of them got so close that Waverly wondered if she had somehow managed to disappear altogether.

Gratitude, when Willa interrupted everything she said or else completely ignored her existence and left her for bored (the most devastating of all childhood emotions)—but Nicole wouldn’t allow it.

Contempt, when Nicole walked with her signature swagger, all quips and easy smiles, while Waverly felt like she was on the outside, watching everyone around her broadcast their happiness as she lay drowning in a pit of insecurity.

 

And now. Now? Now it was something else entirely.

 

“Where are you, baby girl?” Wynonna called out from the hallway.

“I’m in here,” Waverly called back, cursing herself for sounding so hoarse.

 

She wanted to be brave tonight.

But brave was something reserved for Wynonna. She knew brave wasn’t necessarily good, that it came with consequences, as Gus would say. Brave was reckless, and stupid, and _dangerous_ , all the things that made Waverly’s insides ignite with doubt (and maybe the tiniest bit of hope).

Brave was something that Waverly never could be; she couldn’t afford it.

She could still picture a memory, feather light, with Gus’ voice in her head, so sharp, so tight, muttering again about something Wynonna had gone off to do. Something _brave_.

“That girl,” Gus shook her head, turning to face Waverly with eyes and a smile that shone with pride. “Not you, my Waverly. You’re _my_ girl.”

Waverly could feel her heart thumping in her chest as she managed to return the good-natured smile. No one, _no one_ , had ever taken ownership of Waverly like Gus had. Waverly twisted her fingers together, trying hard to work out in her child’s head what it all meant.

If belonging, absolute, unconditional belonging, came at the cost of never being brave (never being _vulnerable_ ), well, it was the easiest decision she would ever make.

That is, until tonight.

 

“Tell me this sick spread isn’t all vegan,” Wynnona whined, leaning her face down over the food until her nose was in danger of becoming one with the vegan tacos. "I've got to maintain my reputation as the destroyer of hors d'oeuvres." 

Waverly raised an eyebrow, smirked. “You already know the answer to that.”

Nicole appeared in the hallway next to her, not close enough to touch, but close enough that Waverly had to fight off the urge to run the other direction in a panic. “I’ll take one of everything, please.”

Waverly tried to play it cool, knowing full well that playing it cool was an almost guaranteed way of looking like an idiot.

“Why are you so jumpy?” Wynonna demanded, snagging a taco from the plate before Waverly managed to smack her hand away. She swallowed, her lips coming together in a smile. “Tastes like Jack-in-the-Box.”

Waverly blushed, shooing her away from a second serving. “They’re made out of nuts. _Organic_ nuts, Wynonna. They have protein _and_ fiber.”

Wynonna grimaced. “Why didn’t you tell me that before I ate one?!”

“One, you should have assumed, and two—really, Wynonna?”

Wynonna stood triumphant, holding a second taco in hand for a brief moment of victory before stuffing the entire thing into her mouth. The soft skin around Wynonna’s eyes crinkled as she grinned, as it always did when she was feeling genuinely happy.

It was the first thing Waverly could remember learning about Wynonna—she liked to make people laugh. So she’d smile or laugh at all of her jokes, tell her with tears of mirth in her eyes that she made her laugh, talk to others about how funny Wynonna was when she knew her sister was not-so-secretly listening in.

Wynonna loved her back for it.

“Who else is coming tonight?” Wynonna asked, trying and failing to secure her third taco.

“About fifty people confirmed on the Facebook invite, but you know how unreliable that can be,” Waverly answered, absently unlocking her phone on the counter.

“We know fifty people?”

Nicole laughed, and Waverly found herself breathless. “Well, you and I, Wynonna, we are mere peasants in comparison to Purgatory’s Nicest, three years in the running and counting.”

“True,” Wynonna admitted, her expression contemplative.

“Stop it, you guys,” Waverly insisted, impatient, but there was no force behind her words.

“You forgot to mention prom queen and head cheerleader,” Wynonna added.

Waverly groaned. “Oh please, you two, that’s enough.”

“Shae’s coming tonight,” Nicole said by way of announcement, uncharacteristically shy as she leaned against the counter and looked to the side.

 

Waverly could feel her heart pound, afraid that the sound of it would somehow give her away. Okay, so maybe there was a little wrench in the plan. _No biggie, right? Right? Keep breathing_.

 

“Haught Damn, I’ll drink to that!” Wynonna cheered. “Isn’t that the hot doctor chick whose love for Britney Spears rivals yours? You guys can’t’ve been dating that long, right?”

“No, not long at all,” Nicole said, and Waverly ached hearing how _wistful_ she sounded talking about this girl who wasn’t much more than a stranger. "I don't know, though . . . I think there's something special about this one." 

Wynonna playfully shoved Nicole, wagging a finger in her face. "Now you listen here, Naughty Haughty. You say that about literally every girl who so much as looks you in the eye."

Nicole grinned, her expression vaguely dreamy. She turned to Waverly and offered a gratuitous  wink. "Mmm . . . I know. What can I say? I'm a hopeless romantic." 

Wynonna made mock vomiting noises. 

"Um," Waverly began, her voice painfully unsteady. "I need a drink."

She excused herself from the kitchen, where she could still hear Wynonna and Nicole's playful banter. Her heart was racing in earnest now, and she felt weak and sick and unsteady and ugh, well,  _sweaty_.

 

_Heads up, this is damage control. Earth to Waverly. This is a_ BAD  _idea._   

 

Waverly reached for a beer, twisted the cap off, and drank greedily. 

 

The voice inside her head eventually faded to a dull whisper in the background, but there was one pestering thought that remained:

 

_It always ends the same._

 

And so Waverly wrestled with herself, as she always did. Always right at the precipice of the cliff of what she wanted and what everyone else wanted for her. 

 

_I want this_ , she reminded herself.  _I want this, and even if my words don't have any meaning to her, my feelings still matter_ _. I deserve to see this through._

 

Hell, maybe it was the beer talking, but it was all she had, so she was going to run with it. 

 

A knock on the door startled her _again_ because she was a low key  _wreck_. 

"I've got it!" Wynonna announced from the kitchen, swinging around to plant a kiss on Waverly's cheek before sauntering over to the door.

She enthusiastically greeted the six or so people, more behind them, waiting to get inside. Waverly knew that she had been the one to send out the invites, she had been the one to spend the best of her not-so-best high school years with these people, but she couldn't for the life of her remember anyone's names. For tonight, and she knew it was only for tonight, she was going to be selfish, and she didn't give a damn. As far as she was concerned, these humans all sucked. They were but a crowd full of Non-Nicoles, and she had one objective here.  

She drained the last of her beer and made her way to the kitchen. 

"Hey beautiful," Nicole greeted, her eyes twinkling in that way Waverly had foolishly convinced herself was just for her. To be perfectly objective, she had never seen Nicole to date use the eye twinkle™ on anyone else, but to admit that it was just for her was also somehow more terrifying. So it wasn't just for her ( _but it was_ ). 

"Are you having a good time?" Waverly asked, immediately wanting to punch herself in the face for sounding so awkward. Why did everything that came out of her mouth around Nicole sound so dumb? 

"Yeah," Nicole nodded, her dimples flashing as she smiled. "I'm so impressed with your event planning skills, Waves. Seriously. This must have taken you an awfully long time to put together. You are amazing. Thank you."

The blush  _burned_ as it creeped up her neck and flowed into the apples of her cheeks. "Th-thank you. I figured it was time we do a little something at the Homestead for once."

At this, Nicole furrowed her brows. "You see, that's the thing, Waverly. Aren't you usually more of an, oh, I don't know, an 'I'd-rather-be-home' type of person? You don't have to prove anything to anyone, you know. You don't owe anyone anything."

 

It was at this moment, because of course it was, that Wynonna decided to re-enter the scene, shot glasses in hand. 

There was something about Wynonna that was inherently  _wild_ , Waverly had decided. Whether it was her loose, unruly curls, her striking eyes, her quick wit, or some devilish combination of D) all of the above, she didn't know. There was something less restrained about her sister than the rest of humanity. Normally, Waverly enjoyed this aspect of her sister. Admired it, even. But she saw that liquor in her sister's hands and felt her plan slipping like water through the cracks in her fingers. 

"Drink up losers," Wynonna demanded with the confidence of someone with whom there was no arguing. "No one gets out of a New Year's Eve party sober." 

She wasn't wrong. No one did go to New Year's Eve parties to drink fancy ass sparkling apple juice. 

But it was the principle of the thing. Maybe you didn't leave New Year's Eve parties sober, but you also didn't have heartfelt confessions years in the making drunk. Well, you could, people did it all the time, actually, it was just (reasonably) ill-advised. And if there was anything Waverly Earp's decisions were not, it was ill-advised.  

"Wynonna," Waverly began. 

"Don't need to tell me twice," Nicole interrupted, downing her shot in one gulp.

 

Fudge.

Nuggets.

Shit.

_Sticks._

 

"Come on, babe," Wynonna insisted, popping her lips and shoving the shot glass closer to Waverly's face. "Don't be a prude."    

"Prude really has nothing to do with it," Waverly muttered, pretending to close her eyes in response to the sting of the alcohol rather than her absolute lack of desire to see her sister's expression of _smug_.  

 

When she opened her eyes, there were three empty shot glasses next to Nicole.

 

This was the kind of moment that would be funny if it weren't the actual worst thing that had ever happened.

Waverly wanted to be patient, she wanted to be rational. So, of course, naturally, the next words that came out were next to screaming. "NICOLE!"

Nicole didn't have the time to look confused at Waverly before Wynonna went in for a high five ("Up top, Haught Shot!"), a request for which Nicole desperately lacked the requisite dexterity.  

"I thought . . . I thought you weren't trying to drink so much!" Waverly all but whimpered. She hoped there was enough  _flabbergast_ in her voice so someone would start listening.  

Nicole shrugged, almost repentant, but not nearly enough. "The New Year doesn't start for another ten minutes. I get ten minutes to make all the mistakes I want. 'Sides, I need a little liquid courage, if you know what I mean." 

Wynonna whistled through her fingers. "Let's get it LESBI- _ONNNNN_!" 

 

That part earlier about the worst thing that had ever happened? 

Scratch that. Cause this, this was the actual worst thing that had ever happened. 

 

Scatch that again, because here was Shae, waltzing into the kitchen like a girl who was gorgeous and rich, like Kourtney Kardashian I am rich, bitch rich.

  

It would be easier to hate Shae if she weren't so painstakingly kind and good and generous and  _beautiful_ and all the things Nicole would probably want in a girlfriend. Waverly wanted to hate Shae. She wanted to so badly that it physically hurt. But she didn't. She couldn't. 

 

Shae gave the back of Nicole's bicep a squeeze, like a romantic comedy,  _I can woo you with one touch_ kind of squeeze, before acknowledging the Earp siblings. "This is a lovely party, Waverly. Nicole told me about how good you are at planning events. Have you ever thought about a career as an events coordinator?"

Waverly opened her mouth, closed it. She could tell by the tone of Shae's voice that she was genuinely interested in what she had to say, and she didn't know how to unpack that. She didn't know how to steer this conversation back to where she wanted it to be. She didn't know if there was still any even  _remote_ chance of getting Nicole alone. 

"Well, I," she stopped, licked her lips. 

 

_I don't care about event coordinating. I'm trying to keep my first promise to myself_ ever,  _and you are standing between me and what I want._

 

"Hey everybody, get in here! The ball's gonna drop in less than one minute!" 

 

"Can't miss this important milestone in the New Year's puberty!" Wynnona chortled to herself, looping her arm through Waverly's to steer her to the front room.

Waverly pulled away, wrapping her arms around herself in what she knew was a pathetic attempt at protection. "Go without me. I don't want to watch the ball drop this year. I'm not—I'm just not feeling it."

"Hey."

And suddenly Nicole was right up next to her, searching her face with concern. From the glossy look in her eyes, it was obvious that she was still wasted, but the relative alcohol content of her blood did nothing to diminish the worry there that was so freely given. 

Waverly wanted to get lost in it, to feel like she mattered, like she mattered to  _Nicole_. She wanted the metaphorical remote to life, wherever that little shit was hiding, to appear in her hands and to press the pause button and to live in this moment for a little longer. _Pause, please. I need a do-over._  

"Nicole, please, I don't want to miss this." 

It was Shae's voice, the voice both Waverly and Nicole knew Nicole would always respond to. 

"I'm coming!" Nicole turned back to Waverly, holding a hand in between both of hers and stroking her thumb across the tops of Waverly's fingers. "Promise me you'll tell me after?" 

Waverly felt the hope rising up behind her ribcage, so bright and hot that it was painful. It would be easy to blow it off, pretend like it was nothing. But that wasn't what Waverly wanted to do. 

"Yeah," she whispered back, nodding. "I promise." 

"Good."

 

Nicole gave her hand one last squeeze before the two walked into the uncomfortably crowded front room, where Waverly could just make out over the tops of everyone's heads that they had about 10 seconds left before the new year hit. 

 

Her heart beat in tandem with the clock counting down the remaining seconds, her breathing just the slightest bit labored. Maybe, just maybe, she about to buy into some of the New Year's bullshit. New year, new me, they say. Maybe this new year  _would_ be different. Maybe Waverly would be different. Maybe she would be someone that she actually liked?  

 

It was strange, this had to be the longest 10 seconds of Waverly's life, and that included the time she'd had to pick the lock to her room when Wynonna had found the diary hidden too obviously in her top drawer.

She thought at first that it must be the anticipation of counting down to the new year, the combined energy of all the bodies in the room weighing down on her. That's what she thought, until, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Shae drop down to one knee and reach into her pocket. 

 

Time wasn't slow anymore. It had stopped. 

 

Waverly watched, transfixed, unable to move, to blink, to  _breathe_ , as Shae slid the ring around Nicole's finger. 

 

"Nicole Rayleigh Haught, will you marry me?" 

 

 

Waverly felt the sting of tears in her eyes long before she heard Nicole say  _yes, yes of course I will_ ,  _I love you_ —

The voice in her head returned.

 

_L_ _ast chance for changing lanes and you missed it by a mile_

_Why didn't you listen to me?_

 

She ran and ran and ran up the stairs, not caring that she was making an excessive amount of noise, not caring that this was her party, that she was supposed to be the good one, the responsible one, whatever the hell that meant—

Waverly reached the foot of the stairs, walked into her room. 

It was quiet, all the furniture and furnishings sitting still and silent in a show of respect for the storm that raged inside of her. So quiet, so alone. 

 

Waverly sat on the floor, brought her knees to her chest, exhaled. She was surprised at how  _numb_ sad could feel. 

 

 

 

It felt like too much, and nothing at all.  

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

_This must be it_

_Welcome to the new year_


End file.
